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Paradise Lost
' |image= |series= |production= 40510-484 |producer(s)= |story= Ronald D. Moore |script= Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe |director= Reza Badiyi |imdbref=tt0708575 |guests=Brock Peters as Joseph Sisko, Robert Foxworth as Leyton, Herschel Sparber as Jaresh-Inyo, Susan Gibney as Benteen, David Drew Gallagher as Riley Shepard, Aron Eisenberg as Nog |previous_production=Homefront |next_production=Crossfire |episode=DS9 S04E011 |airdate= 8 January 1996 |previous_release=Homefront |next_release=(DS9) Crossfire (Overall) Prototype |story_date(s)=49364 (2372) |previous_story=Homefront |next_story=(DS9) Crossfire (Overall) Prototype }} =Summary= Previously With the wormhole opening and closing for no apparent reason, a priority 1 message arrives from Starfleet Security containing proof the Changelings have infiltrated Earth. Once the USS Lakota delivers Sisko and Odo to Earth, Admiral Leyton puts Sisko in charge of Earth's security. Sisko soon convinces Federation president Jaresh-lnyo to increase security at Federation and Starfleet offices, only for a Changeling to temporarily assume Leyton's identity and clear all the checkpoints. Then, without warning, every power relay on Earth stops working, leaving Earth defenseless. Expecting a Jem'Haddar attack, Leyton, Sisko, and Odo convince Jaresh-lnyo to declare a state of emergency. Conclusion As the days pass, Sisko becomes more and more puzzled by the events that led to martial law on Earth. He wonders how Changelings could have accomplished the power outage in the first place. And his suspicions heighten when Odo uncovers a transporter log showing the elite Red Squad returning to Starfleet Academy only twenty-six minutes after the state of emergency was declared. Under the ploy of dissatisfaction with Red Squad's performance, Sisko manages to trick one of its members, Cadet Riley Shepard, into disclosing the truth. In fact, Red Squad caused the outage—acting on orders from Starfleet Command. All indications point to Admiral Leyton. Evidently Leyton and others staged the incident to convince Federation president Jaresh-lnyo to declare the state of emergency. Unfortunately, Shepard and the rest of Red Squad disappear before Sisko can force them to appear before Jaresh-lnyo. Sisko then calls Kira to say he suspects someone faked the wormhole openings to raise suspicions about a cloaked fleet of Jem'Haddar warships. Quickly locating the conspirator, the senior staff board the Defiant to bring him to Earffn. At this Leyton sends the Lakota to blockade the Defiant. But when he subsequentfy orders Commander Benteen to destroy and not just disable the vessel, Benteen balks—allowing the Defiant to reach Earth with the evidence needed to expose the conspiracy. =Errors and Explanations= Plot Oversights # I'm thinking about applying to Starfleet Academy. I think I can pass the intelligence requirements. Sisko debriefs Red Squad member Cadet Riley Shepard concerning the power outages. The young man rehearses the operation in detail. Then Sisko goes to Jaresh-lnyo with his suspicions that Starfleet sabotaged the power grid. Jaresh-lnyo can't believe it and asks for proof. Sisko says he will get some. In other words, Sisko didn't record the conversation he had with Shepard?! (Okay, okay. It may not have been admissible in court, but it would have been enough for Jaresh-Inyo to test the waters by asking Leyton to withdraw the troops.) Sisko is referring to something that will stand up in court. # Trying to stop Sisko from thwarting his plans, Leyton frames our good captain as a Changeling and throws him in a holding cell. Odo soon comes to break Sisko out and in the process demonstrates that he knows the Vulcan neck pinch. (Must have ordered the correspondence course from Spock.) He probably felt it necessary to acquaint himself with various non-lethal methods of subduing violent or dangerous suspects without resorting to use of a weapon. # Okay, so let's talk about the battle between the Defiant and the Lakota. First and foremost, it was gorgeous! Beautiful graphics. Kudos to the creators. Unfortunately, I do have a few nits to report. (I'm sure you guessed there would be.) First, the battle never had to happen! Worf commands the ship. He has a mission. His mission is to make it to Earth with and deliver the conspirator, Lieutenant Arriaga. As the Defiant tools along, Dax reports that the Lakota has hailed them, ordering them to drop out of warp and prepare to be boarded. Kira then chimes in that the Lakota has raised its shields and powered up its phasers. In other words, it means business. What is Worf's response? He keeps flying straight into the Lakota's weapons range. Why not just flip on the cloak, execute a few turns, and ditch the Lakota? (l know it's illegal, but that's never stopped this crew before.) Of course, once the Defiant wanders into the Lakota's weapons range and takes a few hits, Kira finally suggests the cloak. To this, Worf responds that they would have to drop their shields So why not jump to warp, get out of weapons range momentarily, drop your shields, cloak, do a few fancy turns, and...ditch the Lakota?! (l think Worf just really wants to fight.) He probably regards that as being dishonourable. Equipment Oddities # At the beginning of the Changeling chat above, Sisko doesn't believe that O'Brien could be on Earth. Sisko says there's no way the Defiant could get from the station to Earth that fast. Later we see Sisko talking with Kira on DS9. The conversation seems instantaneous in its interaction. In addition, its pretty obvious that Sisko hasn't asked his senior staff to join him on Earth yet. (If he had, they wouldn't be on the station, they would be in transit.) Most likely, then, when telling the Changeling that the Defiant couldn’t get to Earth that fast, Sisko is imagining the senior staff disembarking on their own for Earth because of some emergency. It makes sense that if the senior staff heard that Earth was defenseless, they would hop in the Defiant and come to protect it. (After all—as we have seen over and over— they really don't have jobs on the station, and they can leave whenever they feel like it!) The power outage occurred at least four days prior to the Changeling chat, according to dialogue. Sisko then would be incredulous that the Defiant could make it to Earth in only four days. This actually jibes with dialogue in other episodes. The Search Part 1 seems to indicate that the trip from Earth to the station takes about a week. (Yes, the dialogue in The Search Part 1 could mean that the trip takes less than four days but then Deep Space 9 wouldn't be very deep in space, now, would it?) So...just for the sake of argument, let's say it takes only four days to fly from DS9 to Earth. I realize you've probably been wondering if there's a point to this discussion. There is. Remember the instantaneous conversation with Kira? If the Defiant takes four days to make the trip from Earth to the station and subspace communications make the trip with a one- second or less delay, just how fast do subspace communications travel? Answer: Subspace communications must be 345,600 times faster than the Defiant! (That's 4 multiplied by 24 multiplied by 60 multiplied by 60.) And, if the trip to Earth takes longer than four days, the problem just gets worse. Now, the Tech Manual says that subspace communications travel ap- proximately sixty times faster than the fastest Starfleet starship either existing or predicted. Either the Defiant is a lot slower than the fastest starship predicted, or subspace communications have received an amazing performance upgrade. Probably a combination of both! # The Lakota appears to be an Excelsior-class vessel, just like the Enterprise B in Star Trek Generations. But the Lakota differs from the normal Excelsior-class vessel in that it features a ridge around the belly of the star-drive section. In my review of Star Trek Generations for the (NextGen) II Guide, I found it odd that we never saw this particular Excelsior-class configuration in the entire run of the (NextGen) television series. Since the Enterprise-B supposedly existed more than seventy years prior to (NextGen), I couldn't figure out why we hadn't seen the design before. I even speculated that Starfleet had abandoned it for some reason. I guess they hadn't. It just happened that we never saw it. (Wink, wink.) The upgrade could be restricted to certain situations. Continuity And Production Problems # For some reason, neither Nog nor Shepard has those bars on the collar that we saw on the cadet uniforms in The First Duty (TNG). That practice may have been discontinued. Nit Central # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Tuesday, August 29, 2000 - 1:43 am: When Sisko discovers the transporter traces of Red Squad, he contacts a Bolian admiral, at least, I think he was an admiral. He seemed to have the rectangular bars of an admiral, but he only had a total of 4 pips (stars? bumps?) inside the bars. Most admirals seem to have 6 pips. The only other exception that I've ever noticed was Admiral Riker in All Good Things who had 8 pips. Josh G. on Thursday, December 07, 2000 - 11:38 pm:'' I believe that Admiral Pressman of "The Pegasus" has a mere four pips on his uniform. I recall Admiral Nechayev having the same at some point or another on TNG. ' # '''WARNING!!! POSSIBLE SPOILER FOR THE SEVENTH SEASON EPISODE VALIANT! The members of Red squad were sent away so they couldn't testify about their actions. I wonder if they were sent on the starship Valiant to circle the Federation at warp 3.6? That would certainly keep them away from any investigation! # Admiral Layton fixes the blood test so it looks like Sisko is a Changeling, but didn't a Changeling disguised as Bashir do the same thing to Commander Eddington in The Adversary? Wouldn't that subterfuge be on record and some kind of precautions established to prevent a repeat? It may have been considered impossible for anyone to duplicate the subterfuge. # Why is Kira on the Defiant? She's not a Starfleet officer. Kira is Sisko’s second in command. # Of course, Odo isn't even a Federation citizen and Starfleet ordered him to Earth. He is Sisko’s chief of security, and a Changeling. # WARNING!!! POSSIBLE SPOILER FOR THE LAST SEASON OR TWO! In this episode we learn that many of the things blamed on the Changelings in the previous episode were actually instigated by Admiral Layton to force the President to declare martial law. Oddly enough, when war between the Federation & Dominion does break out, the Changelings on Earth apparently choose not to terrorize Earth with explosions and sabotage.They may have been withdrawn after the events of this episode. # Mike Ram on Sunday, November 17, 2002 - 5:35 pm: Just a thought: It's funny how Odo beat up two male security officers when rescuing Sisko, but only neck pinched a female officer. Now, I understand she was CUTE (hehe), but why couldn't Odo just morph into some tendrils and just slap everybody down? He is, at ‘heart’, a gentleman! # Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Friday, January 03, 2003 - 8:01 pm: Question: The Defiant needs to get to Earth right? So why don't they cloak? I know the Romulans said they can't use it in AQ, but as Sisko would say "I won't tell if you won't tell". Perhaps they prefer to keep the shields active. # John A. Lang on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 6:35 pm: At the end, Sisko just lets Layton walk out on his own to submit his resignation. Is that a smart thing to do? Not really, but it is the decent thing to do! Category:EpisodesCategory:Deep Space Nine